


When There is Nothing Left to Burn

by theswearingkind



Category: Alexander (2004), Alexander Trilogy - Mary Renault
Genre: Drabble, M/M, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 19:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/pseuds/theswearingkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They say the wives there, upon the deaths of their husbands, climb atop the funeral pyres for very grief."</p>
            </blockquote>





	When There is Nothing Left to Burn

“India,” Alexander says, eyes and voice alight with the wave of passion of a man who dreams of what he is sure he will soon have. “Did you ever think to dream of such a thing?”

“No,” Hephaestion replies truthfully, and Alexander frowns, just slightly, as he always does when his passions are not shared. “I did not need to,” Hephaestion amends, powerless as he has ever been under Alexander’s displeasure, “when you dream it for me.”

Alexander’s face lightens at that, becomes perhaps even smug, and Hephaestion feels something inside himself rise up to meet it, heart full and fiercely glad as Alexander casts his eyes back toward the horizon and continues. “They say the wives there, upon the deaths of their husbands, climb atop the funeral pyres for very grief. A savage custom, to be sure, but is there not something in it, my Hephaestion? To walk into the fire, to immolate yourself for love? Can you imagine it?”

Alexander turns away, then, and Hephaestion is glad, because he cannot school his face into obedience, cannot hide the longing of the youth still fifteen years of age under the tempered consideration of the war-hardened general, cannot quite smother the flames of the boy’s desire in the banked ashes of the man’s knowledge of who it is that will replace him, one day. 

_If you ask that question in earnest, my Alexander,_ Hephaestion thinks, _then you have not been paying attention._


End file.
